Cedar Rapids Police Department have released the identity of the man killed Sunday in a shooting at the Summit View Village in Cedar Rapids. He was 19-year-old Keyshawn Allers of Palo. Officers found him in the 100 block of Curtis Street SW with multiple gunshot wounds around 4 o’clock Sunday morning. Allers was pronounced dead at the scene. Cedar Rapids Police are investigating it as a homicide.
The Iowa Department of Public Health is reporting 460 more COVID-19 cases and three more deaths in Iowa over the previous 24 hours. But that is far fewer new cases than have been confirmed in each of the past few days. The state’s data is showing a total of 35,462 COVID-19 cases and 752 COVID-19 related deaths since the pandemic began.
Iowa State Athletics Director Jamie Pollard says if fall sports are canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ISU athletic department would incur around $40 million in unfunded expenses in the next six months alone. Since the start of the pandemic in March, the university’s revenue losses and costs are estimated to reach around $73 million by late August. Pollard says that could lead to layoffs in the department, or even the elimination of certain sports programs altogether.
Pathologists will determine whether coronavirus killed an inmate in a northwest Iowa prison. A news release from the Iowa Department of Corrections says 62-year-old Ronald Eugene Holdworth died Saturday morning as he was being taken from the prison to a hospital. Officials say the State Medical Examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine whether COVID-19 was a factor in his death. The Fort Dodge Correctional Facility has reported more than 100 inmates and nine employees have tested positive for the virus.
A Waterloo man has been arrested after leading sheriff’s deputies on a chase that ended when his stolen vehicle became stuck in a muddy field. 26-year-old Cole McNamara was charged with felony eluding, second-degree theft and driving while barred. A Black Hawk County deputy attempted to stop the SUV…but the vehicle continued on, reaching speeds of up to 80 mph in a 55 mph zone and headed into a cornfield. After the vehicle got stuck, McNamara got out and started to run but was caught about half a mile away. Deputies say the vehicle had been reported stolen in Waterloo on June 16.
A Waterloo man has been arrested, accused of vandalizing a downtown bar after it closed. 38-year-old Nathan Lee Meyer was arrested Sunday and charged with felony-level second-degree criminal mischief. Meyer had been at the Behar Bar, on Fourth St. Saturday night, and court records say workers at the establishment had had a problem with him. Meyer left and is accused of returning just before 4 a.m. Sunday morning, breaking the glass on the door and every window at the business. Damage totaled more than $1,500. Witnesses identified Meyer on a security video, and when officers questioned him about the damage, he said it was possible he was involved because he was, in his words, “black out drunk”.
Those COVID-related small business loans saved more than a half million jobs in Iowa…but not all of them. Despite receiving a $14,000 Small Business Relief grant in mid-April from Iowa Economic Development in April, the Blue Iguana Mexican Cantina, located inside the Courtyard by Marriott hotel in downtown Waterloo, is now closed. The restaurant first opened in December 2018. The hotel now lists an established called The Bistro in place of the Blue Iguana on its web page, but it’s not yet operational.
Des Moines Black Lives Matter protesters are calling for Governor Reynolds to sign a felon voting rights executive order immediately. To help spur her on, the group posted a draft executive order on Twitter this weekend. Governor Reynolds has said that she will sign an executive order before the November election. She says she wants to take her time to make sure that it is done right and that it creates a permanent solution. Reynolds has made felon voting rights one of her top issues over the past 2 years.
A U.S. district judge on Monday ordered a new delay in federal executions, hours before the first lethal injection was scheduled to be carried out at a federal prison in Indiana. The Trump administration immediately appealed to a higher court, asking that the executions move forward. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said there are still legal issues to resolve and that “the public is not served by short-circuiting legitimate judicial process.” The executions, pushed by the administration, would be the first carried out at the federal level since 2003. One of those scheduled to be executed this week is Dustin Honken, who killed five Iowans including children.
Crews rescued a kayaker who swamped his boat on the Cedar River Sunday afternoon. Rescue workers were called to the river by Gateway Park shortly before 4:30 p.m. and found the boater sitting on the top of a wing dam. Fire rescue crews launched a boat from Washington Park, picked up the kayaker and brought him to safety without injury.
Two women are accused of speeding and having marijuana and a loaded gun in the back of a car near a child. On Sunday afternoon, a Dallas County official said a car was driving 87 mph on Interstate 80. After pulling the car over, the driver admitted to police she had been smoking marijuana. Officials found several bags and canisters with marijuana in the back of the vehicle, as well as pipes and a loaded 9-millimeter handgun within the reach of a child. Quina Sanders of Indiana and Tashea Powell of Chicago face several charges as a result.
